Last winter I wrote a column arguing for the university to install a smoking room somewhere on campus so that those who choose to smoke can do so without feeling like complete social rejects, and so that they won’t get frostbite when they are indulging in their habit. Naturally, my viewpoint was unpopular, the column faded into oblivion and I was content to leave it at that.

Until I found out that the university is now planning to make the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee a non-smoking campus. To those who think that one viewpoint must triumph over the other in all things, this is a great victory for you.

Granted, at the moment I am in the process of quitting smoking. Somehow the whole thing has lost its appeal for me, and I’d rather not go broke indulging a habit that, in the long run, is pretty expensive. That is the best reason, if any, that there is to quit.

Sadly the part of me that sympathizes with the people who are still smoking won’t allow me to join any victory party.

I am well aware of the dangers of smoking, as is anyone else who has not been living under a rock for the past hundred years. After Dana Reeve died, the media went nuts over the fact that she had never smoked a cigarette in her life, yet still died of lung cancer.

Believe me, I did notice the irony. But what no one made any note of is that she spent years as a lounge singer, in poorly ventilated bars. This is what is called an enclosed space, and if anything – and I mean anything – is put into the air in one of those, you are going to breathe it in.

The UWM campus is not a poorly ventilated bar. Some of the buildings may come close, but the open air outside of them is not. Smoke, like most vapor, tends to go upward, away from the sensitive lungs of non-smokers. Contrary to what the media may tell you, it is highly unlikely that you are going to contract lung cancer from a random cloud of cigarette smoke.

Yet, because so many people are so sure that declaring UWM a smoke-free campus is in the best interests of all, we are willing to buy into it without really sitting down and thinking about it. I made this point before, and I am OK with making it again: It is, in theory, a free country, and that whole freedom of choice thing allows people to choose to smoke.

The smokers on this campus have already been forced 30 feet away from all public buildings at all times; telling them that they can’t smoke at all on campus is overkill. College is extremely stressful, and there are those out there who are able to find five minutes of relaxation outdoors with a cigarette.

To the non-smokers, yes, I understand your argument. I respect it, and I respect your right to say it, but freedom of anything is a two-way street. If the smokers of this campus are to respect your right not to breathe in cigarette smoke by standing 30 feet away from the buildings, then you are to respect their right to smoke if they feel like it. It’s the American way, people.

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